That Secret That You Know
by spiresandforestfires
Summary: She whispered to herself, "Beware the frozen heart," grasping at the cold ache in her chest as though it might escape and swallow her whole. An Elsa character piece, with heavy Anna appearances. Eventually Elsanna romance. WARNING: long story ahead mature content/incest. Will feature Kristoff, Sven, Olaf, Hans, Marshmallow and others.
1. Prologue: Birth

_I was born in a cloud...  
Now I am falling._

Elsa, the first child of the King and Queen of Arendelle, was born, as you might not expect, on the hottest day of the year. In a distant part of the castle, nestled into the coolest, darkest room they could manage, Elsa's mother, the Queen, still could not find solace from the heat inside of her.

She'd always been warm blooded, the Queen, enjoying horse riding through summer fields and swimming in the crystal blue fjords as a child. She was a woman of light, outspoken and feisty, everything her calm, gentle husband was not.

After the midwife had cleaned tiny Elsa up, she was pressed into her mother's arms, murmuring softly as babies always do, eyes shut tight against a world she knew nothing of quite yet. When the Queen pressed her lips to Elsa's tiny cheek, the flesh stung like the shock of an ice cube against one's skin when you're not expecting it.

Elsa's little finger reached up to swipe blindly at her mother's lips, frosting her chin in a thin layer of ice. The midwives and servants jumped back in recognition, now afraid to the touch the child they believed to be cursed.

The Queen's face split into a grin, laughing at how wonderful it was to stare down at her baby girl and see in her a gift, a power not so different from her own mother's.

The others in the room, noting the Queen's joyful reaction, chose to accept the child as she was and ran to fetch the King so that he too could share in these first moments with his wife and daughter.

The King had known of the gift, which ran in his wife's bloodline, but had never seen the effects in person. He had only heard stories of the beautiful, misunderstood mother-in-law who was dead long before he'd ever met his lovely, kind, but ordinary wife.

"She looks like her, Mother who I miss so much, who was always cold to the touch, but gentle, _so_ gentle." She went on whispering to herself, as she looked down at her daughter- _just the same, beautiful, beautiful_.

The King was worried. His worst fear had been realized, a child cursed with the powers of deep winter, who could grow to be ostracized and murdered like his wife's mother, or worse, a villain herself. He'd prayed, spent months fantasizing about a little boy or girl with dark hair and fair eyes, who might marry a handsome prince or princess and live the life a child of a King and Queen might deserve.

Instead was this beautiful daughter with blonde hair like snowdrifts upon the crown of her head, exhaling steamy December breath in the midst of July. She was unique and the King was compelled to love her as all fathers love their children, but he feared for her and for his currently ignorant kingdom that might one day seek to destroy or worship her. Most of all, he wanted her to be happy and safe at all costs. The Queen wanted the same and when the time came for Elsa to take the throne she vowed to tell her all about her own mother, who, before her untimely death, had discovered the secrets behind the gift's origins and purposes.

She smiled again, handing her baby carefully over to the midwife who handled her now more like a precious crystal bowl than an infant. She placed her in the basinet by the window, which looked out at a piercing blue sky, not unlike the irises that remained closed for a little while longer to the truth of their existence, which did not know hot from cold, love or hatred, power or weakness…just yet.

* * *

_See how they resemble one another_  
_Even in their plastic little covers_

Anna was born three years later in different circumstances. It was April and all the kingdom was burning green, gold, red, and blue and the breeze that rushed through the streets and forests of Arendelle brought with it the first hints of Spring's warmth, glowing in the relieved faces of Arendelle's subjects who had been dealing with mysteriously long and severe winters the last few years.

She came quickly and loudly, screaming and crying her way into a world that was so happy to see her flushed cheeks and strawberry blonde hair. She squirmed in the arms of the midwife, grasping at the fabric of her dress tightly and yanking with all the strength of three infants.

The Queen knew already that she was stubborn. She also knew that this girl was not like her first. She was warm with sweaty little palms that reached out to grasp the Queen's.

"Bring them in, I want them to meet little Anna. They're going to adore her."

Elsa came bounding in before her father who smiled crookedly at his wife who gazed back as if to share a secret. _This one is warm_. _She will not suffer for nothing. _Little Elsa who was strangely graceful even at three years old climbed atop her mother's bed, pressing her cool hands against her hip, and stared down at her baby sister nestled into the Queen's chest.

"Mama, what's her name?"

"Anna- short, but beautiful"

"She just looks short to me! Are babies always so tiny?"

Elsa giggled and the sound seemed to lull baby Anna to sleep. The King had come to stand beside the three girls, responding while teasingly mussing up his daughter's perfectly braided hair: "No. Not always. After all, you were quite massive my dear, nearly crushed poor Gerta with a stomp of your pudgy little foot."

Elsa turned her best faux-glare on him, all the while reaching around for the baby girl's hand. Elsa, who'd been born with a gift (or a curse— depending on who you asked) didn't know what the appeal of heat was. In the dead of winter, her favorite time of year, she didn't even bother to have her fireplace lit. She would've happily slept outside in the snow every night. No, Elsa had never really gotten why people looked forward to steaming tea and summer weather until she cupped her sister's hand in her own.

"Elsa, darling, Anna means gracious."

"Mama, what does _gray-shus_ mean?"

"It means that now that I've named her Anna, she is destined to be beautiful and kind."

"Okay, then what does Elsa mean?"

"Well sometimes words are complicated, even names. To me, Elsa means truth and strength. You were a very strong baby when my belly swelled with you and I hope that your name will always give you strength and the courage to be honest."

"I would never lie to either you or Papa."

"I know darling, it is my hope that one day when you're grown that you have the strength to be honest with yourself."

The King, all the while, stood by observing the conversation. His wife's words were enough to bring shiny tears to his eyes, this day resembling so much the day of Elsa's birth when his fears and anxieties began with no seeming end in sight. The King loved his daughters and vowed to raise them in acceptance of the other. Anyway, Elsa's powers were hardly a problem as he once thought they'd be. The girl was able to turn glasses of water into frozen cylinders, but that was about it. There was an incident with a large bathtub turned amateur indoor sledding arena, but that could be overlooked. His little girl was happy and okay with her curse, accepting it as part of her reality and blissfully unaware of what damage it could do to the people around her and, more importantly, herself.

He told himself that Anna would know of Elsa's powers. She would be raised loving and accepting of her family, regardless of their faults. Anyway, Elsa's powers were nothing like he imagined they would be. They were safe, even a bit juvenile, nothing to worry about just yet.

**Author's Note: Hello! This fic should be interesting, more emphasis on Elsa's character development, but I'm gonna try to tackle both sisters. The first few chapters are mostly going to deal with their early childhood, then the next few will deal with the revelation of Elsa's powers as bad and dangerous and then it will actually follow through on the plot of the film and what comes after. It's primarily a character piece, but it will be ****_Elsanna_**** eventually. I just love these characters so it should be fun to write this. Updates might be a bit slow cause a bitch has gotta get a university education, ya feel me? Anyway, yeah there will be Kristoff/Anna, Hans/Anna, Chocolate/Elsa, Marshmallow, Olaf, OCs, eventually M rated (so no kiddies- incest ahoy). Most importantly, I'll be exploring Elsa's gift/curse and its origins and meanings ****_waaaay_**** more than the film does.**

**The title of the fic is from a song of the same name by Bon Iver called Blood Bank. **

**Subtitles from Snowflake by Kate Bush / Bloody Bank by Bon Iver**

**xx A**


	2. Have You Ever Heard of The Ice Witch?

**Chapter One:**

_There are millions of snowflakes.  
We're dancing._

"Hey, Anna! Do you wanna build a snowbaby?" Elsa grinned down at her tiny sister who gurgled back with a smile, baby teeth and all. Anna most likely had no idea what a snowman or, well, _a snowbaby_, even was, but Elsa was lonely and the weather outside was stiflingly hot and steamy, the worst kind of summer's day in Elsa's opinion.

It was fine though, because she'd recently discovered that she could make little snow flurries if she wiggled her fingers just right. The first time had been by accident. Her mother and father had noticed her interest in music and bought her a baby grand piano that sat in the corner of her massive room, just beside the window. She loved how beautiful it was, shiny black with a plush leather seat to accompany it. She enjoyed pressing the keys softly and listening carefully for the dulcet notes.

They brought in a music teacher to tell her about how to read music, time signatures, and tempo, whatever. He was Italian and mostly she just liked the way his 'r's rolled off his tongue. He was handsome and young and even though she was only six she liked to imagine he was something like the princes in her storybooks who could whisk her away to some gorgeous castle in the sky, overlooking snowfields and let her eat all the chocolate she wanted to. It was a lie though.

Even at her age, she knew that one day she would have to take over her father's responsibilities and that, yes, she would marry a prince, but he would not be kind and make funny faces like her music teacher. He would walk around like her mother and father's friends with his nose stuck up in the air and drink funny, bubbly stuff from fancy glasses and yammer on about boring stuff.

One day, her music teacher, Firenze, who was named after his home city of Florence, which resided somewhere far south of Arendelle where it hardly ever snowed (to Elsa's horror) was teaching her a song called Moonlight Sonata, a song by a very musical man with a funny name like _bay-toe-ven_. Firenze said that it was a pretty new song, but very popular across the entire continent and that Beethoven was a genius even though he was deaf.

"How can he make music if he's deaf?"

"You see, his deafness has made all the difference in his genius, child. His talent, his art, it means something different to him now that he experiences it so differently. He does not just hear music, he sees it, feels it all around and within him. The music is an extension of who he is and how he feels. Even though he can't hear it anymore, he feels it even more strongly."

Firenze smiled down at Elsa as she thought his words through. It was all very confusing. Her favorite part of playing the piano was hearing the music and she imagined it must difficult to _write_ it if one couldn't even _hear_ it.

"I'm sorry, Firenze, I just don't get it."

"You don't now, but I think there is something for all of us to be learned from Beethoven. We all have gifts and with those gifts come challenges, obstacles. When you're older you might understand. Sometimes we have to lose things to understand them more, treasure them more. The parts of ourselves that we hate the most can yield the most beautiful pieces of music or art. Beethoven is a man who is often in pain, bitter over his hearing loss and life itself. This combination leads to struggle, but also stunning music, you see?"

"Not really, I don't think. Can I have some of your Italian chocolate?"

He started to laugh and reached into his bag to fetch the chocolate bar. "Of course, as long as you don't get those sticky fingers of yours anywhere near the piano," he teased, "then we get back to work!"

She chomped down on the dark chocolate, savoring it, but also excited to get back to learning the new song. This excitement was quickly dampened when she realized how difficult the song was. Her small fingers kept tripping over the wrong keys, producing a discordant rumble of ugly notes every few seconds. She sighed and whined in the way that little girls often do when they can't get their way. Firenze simply urged her to keep trying, to take it slower, but the more frustrated Elsa became, the sloppier the performance.

Soon enough she was breathing heavily. She had knocked over the piano seat out of frustration and Firenze seemed ready to diffuse a temper tantrum, when a strange wind seemed to blow through the room. It was stronger than a draft and the window was closed so he began to spin in circles as though looking for a source in the wallpaper. As the wind picked up so did Elsa's tantrum, spiraling into a frigid gust as it brought with it a tiny snowstorm, self-contained within their little corner of the bedroom.

Firenze started to yell, alarmed and ignorant of the young princess' abilities. The King and Queen had decided that only a few staff members were allowed to know and seeing as Firenze was a temporary visitor from a foreign country, they thought it unwise to tell him of their daughter's affliction. It was no use of course. He found out anyway and in the worst of ways.

Elsa was generally a very calm, collected child. She had grace far beyond her six years and a sweet smile. She mostly followed her parents' rules, except for when it came to sweets and she preferred indoor activities throughout most of the year: reading, writing, music, staring at the art in their grand hall. She was introverted and took a long time to warm up to new people in her life. Firenze was an odd exception.

She hardly ever got very frustrated. This might've been because she was rarely ever denied things that she really wanted and also because she was very intelligent. She wanted to read whole novels by herself, so she taught herself to read very quickly. This was mostly true for music as well, but Moonlight Sonata was a difficult song to play, even for the more accomplished musician. Therefore, it's no surprise that no one could've foreseen her mini snowstorm.

Alarmed, Firenze ran out into the hallways, screaming for help. As he skidded around the corner, he came upon Gerta, the King and Queen's favorite maid, dusting some of the marble sculptures.

"I know this may sound insane and I might be dreaming, but there is a snowstorm happening in Elsa's room and I don't know where it's coming from, but it's getting worse!"

Gerta bustled off as quickly as possible to the King and Queen's quarters instead of notifying the guards who were, as of yet, unaware of Elsa's curse. They got up quickly from their afternoon tea and rushed toward Elsa's bedroom, but not before sharing a solemn, knowing glance. The Queen ran a hand down her husband's forearm, as though to calm him, but it was no use. Just when he thought the gift might never progress past tiny icicles and an unnatural love of the month of January, this had to happen.

Meanwhile Firenze had rushed back into the room to save little Elsa from the snowstorm, but when he got there he found her rolling around in the mounds of snow, giggling and building a snowman and a snow _piano_ at warp speeds. She turned around and wiggled her fingers at him and he felt something cold plop down on his head. It was a snowball.

He stared in wonder at her as he realized that all of this snow and cold came from her, not from some freak weather pattern or mild nightmare. Just as frozen drops dripped down his forehead the King and Queen arrived. The King's eyes shot from the mounds of snow to his daughter then back to the snow again and again before focusing on the shocked musician in front of him. The Queen rushed into the room to pick her daughter up off a frozen piano bench she had made, swinging her around and giggling with her as though the snow was not dampening her dress, as though there was nothing strange about a mid-August snowstorm _inside the castle._

"You must understand, Firenze," the King said gruffly as he came to stand beside the young man, "that no one can know of this. If you love my daughter as your own sister or even as a pupil, then you must leave and never come back and, most importantly, never tell anyone of what you've seen here."

Elsa turned to smile at Firenze as if to say _look what I've done! Look how beautiful all of this is!_ He simply stared back at her, looking over at the piano one more time, which now had a tiny army of snowmen standing on it. He breathed deeply, turned and left the castle without so much as a wave goodbye to little Elsa. Even as her mother kept twirling her around, laughing, Elsa's smile fell. She was only six, but she knew what fear looked like and that was all she had seen in Firenze's eyes before he walked out of the room.

It was the first time she had lost something important to her, but she couldn't have known that it wouldn't be the last time.

* * *

_My broken hearts, my fabulous dances.  
My fleeting song, fleeting._

Elsa never forgot about Firenze even though her parents never brought him up and she stopped playing piano for many years. She was still so young, able to forgive herself for the things she couldn't control, something she would struggle with so badly later in life.

She instead turned much of her attention to reading and for a long time after the indoor snowstorm incident she denied herself her love of the cold. She spent an entire winter inside with her little sister Anna, telling her stories that she would reenact just to hear the little girl giggle and try to participate with her baby talk.

The two of them spent a lot of time together. Anna was only 2 and not old enough to go outside by herself anyway so they played out fantasies of princes and marriage with dolls, but Elsa found that her interest in those sorts of tales had faded after Firenze left.

Anna was two and couldn't really understand much yet, but she gravitated toward the handsome prince dolls, pulling at their noses and sometimes bringing them back to her little bed, which had recently been moved into Elsa's room so they could spend even more time together.

The King wasn't sure this move was such a great idea, but the Queen insisted that Elsa's happiness had so much to do with the effects of her gift and that Anna made Elsa very happy. Whenever the Queen spoke of these things her face contorted in such serious tension, as though she were remembering something very sad and haunting from the past. The King had once tried to ask if this reaction had anything to do with her mother and the Queen wouldn't speak to him for two days. After that, he never asked anymore questions and simply had Anna's four-poster bed moved into Elsa's room along with all her toys.

This proved to be an interesting living dynamic as time went on. Elsa was a rule follower and very good at going to bed when her parents and mentors asked her to. Anna on the other hand was always full of energy. Playtime was only over when she conked out on the floor next to her dolls. Often she would sneak out of bed after dark and sing little songs to herself on the floor next to Elsa's bed, pushing a toy carriage back and forth across the carpet. When the singing stopped, Elsa, who was always a light sleeper and kept an eye on her little sister throughout these nighttime play sessions, would scoop her up as best she could and carry her to bed. Elsa would kiss her on the forehead, pull the covers up, and return to her own bed with a smile on her face, not feeling so lonely anymore.

When the next winter came around, Anna was finally old enough to go out to the castle grounds with Elsa to play. All bundled up, she looked like a doll herself and her face was hardly visible through the scarf and hat her mother had placed around her neck and head. Elsa, on the other hand, resisted all of Gerta's attempts to add extra layers to her dress. She took only a cape with her outside, pulling Anna along with her toward the gardens.

All the flowers had died, but Elsa still found the gardens to be the most beautiful part of the castle grounds in winter. The topiaries were several feet taller than usual with snow and the flower stems, though dead and weak, were shiny with the freeze. Elsa, against her parents' wishes (mostly her father's) had begun to experiment with her gift again and found great joy in making her own frozen flowers that had stems like glass and petals made of snow. They were fragile, but oh so pretty and she gave each of them to Anna when she was done, who had a habit of eating the snow petals. This never made Elsa angry though. It just made her laugh.

Sometimes her mother would come outside and play with them when she wasn't needed in court or doing some other queenly activity. She loved to see her little girls playing together in the snow that she loved so much. Anna with her hair and her husband's eyes looking on in awe of Elsa's abilities, it all reminded the Queen greatly of her own childhood. When Elsa gave one of her ice flowers to her, it brought tears to her eyes. It was all too familiar, too _painful_. After that day, the Queen chose to watch them from a distance instead, their interactions making her smile and cry at the same time.

Anna loved the ice flowers, but her favorite thing to do was building snowmen of all sizes. Elsa created many a snowy friend for Anna who always expressed disappointment at the lack of other kids in the castle. Sometimes, when their parents would take them riding (Anna in the carriage since she was so young) they would see little boys and girls playing out in the streets. Even at three years old Anna longed to be a part of this great big world she only got brief glimpses of.

Elsa, on the other hand, was content to just spend time with Anna and herself. She felt very jealous when Anna started playing card games with the boy from the kitchens, as though Anna were somehow _hers_. When she saw Anna's pout after lashing out at her one day after Anna had been playing with that boy, she instantly felt bad, but it was too late. A slick patch of ice had formed under their feet and Anna went sliding into a wall on her wobbly, toddler legs. Elsa thought she should be reprimanded for it, but Anna refused to tell their parents, forgiving Elsa instantly because she hated to see her older sister so upset.

From then on, whenever Elsa was feeling particularly upset about something, even something small, she would tell Anna to go play with the kitchen boy or that she was taking a nap or doing "big princess things," which mostly included moping and crying if the situation was dire (Gerta had a habit of taking away her chocolate stashes from time to time).

Elsa loved her little sister more than anything, even more than blizzards and ice-skating. She especially preferred her company to formal family parties, where distant friends of the kingdom were invited to drink and eat and talk of political and social matters that were enough to put Elsa to sleep.

The other families would often bring their princely little sons, boys who were about her age, give or take a few years. Elsa was seven now and deemed old enough by her parents to start "socializing" with boys, whatever that meant. She'd spent so much time alone that when forced to speak to others she was stilted and shy. Boys were a bit icky, she thought. They picked their noses and played in mud and most of them knew nothing of the books she enjoyed talking about with Anna.

One day, just before Elsa's eighth birthday, her parents invited some important allies and friends from the West (somewhere called In-gull-land) to a dinner party. They brought with them their twelve year old son, the oldest yet that Elsa had met. He had auburn hair, cut cleanly to just above his ears and he looked everything of what a young prince was supposed to look like. He wore fine clothes, but his face was smirking. At twelve, he was already aware of his parents' intentions, unlike Elsa who thought these invitations to be mere coincidence. The young prince, named Gregory, was the youngest of three children with an older sister Mary and an even older sister Victoria.

He was a smug little boy, but when he saw the little princess who seemed so young in comparison to him, he was struck by how beautiful she might become in a few years time. She was already tall for her age with long white-blond hair and porcelain skin. It was her eyes that struck him the most though. They were blue like the most perfect ice sculpture. She was so much prettier than the other girls his parents had forced him to meet.

Unfortunately, Elsa didn't seem as interested in him as he was in her. She avoided his gaze throughout the entire dinner, despite the fact that they were sitting directly opposite each other. Instead she looked down at her food…for two hours. As their parents became louder and less royal with each glass of red wine, Gregory asked Elsa if she might like to dance. With an encouraging nudge from her mother, she had no real choice but to accept the offer. The courtly band began a lovely waltz and the two children started to dance as their parents looked on.

Elsa's hands were sweaty, not from nervous flirtation, but from the proximity of Prince Gregory. She didn't particularly like being touched, especially so near to her hands. His hands were clammy as well, but uncomfortably warm. She was a good dancer, well trained by her mentor, but she didn't much enjoy it. She found interacting with another person, especially a boy, to be so awkward. If Elsa had her way, she'd never have to come to these parties. Instead she'd much prefer to play with Anna's dolls even if she was getting a bit too old to do so.

"You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen."

No one except for her parents and Gerta had ever called her beautiful.

"Thank you. You have…nice shoes?" _Good one, Elsa, dummy._

Prince Gregory laughed and reached up to brush a fleck of something white from her hair. The quick move startled Elsa and she flinched, her fingers sliding off the boy's shoulder and leaving behind some tiny ice crystals, which melted quickly into the fabric of his jacket.

Elsa felt even more uncomfortable now, but it was getting late and her parents decided it was time to say goodbye to the children and send them off to bed. Prince Gregory would be staying in one of the guest wings with his parents.

Elsa rushed out of her gown and into her bedroom where Anna was asleep next to her toy carriage again. Elsa smiled fondly down at her sister's peaceful face and picked her up, slobbering and all, and put her into bed. That night it stormed badly, lightning lighting up their bedroom until it was flickering even through the thick curtains.

Anna started whimpering somewhere to Elsa's right and when she opened her eyes, she saw her little sister's wet eyes staring back.

"Can I stay here with you tonight? I don't like the _thuwn-_der. It sounds like the giants are angry and I don't want them to get me!"

Anna was still young enough to believe in monsters and fairytales. Elsa knew these things to just be stories, but she could never begrudge her sister anything so she pulled the covers up and tugged Anna into her side.

Then they heard a creak as the door was opened. Elsa thought it might be Gerta checking on them in light of the weather. Anna thought it might be a giant come to eat them whole. Actually, it was Prince Gregory who had grown bored of lying awake listening to the claps of thunder.

"Do you ladies wanna hear something really amazing?"

Prince Gregory peered over the bed at the two girls.

"No, not really, thanks." At this point Elsa was a bit irritated. She'd finally gotten her sister to calm down and now this boy had come in unannounced in the middle of the night.

"I want to! Yeah!" Anna immediately shot out of the bed, momentarily forgetting the scary storm outside. Elsa groaned and pulled on her slippers, reminding Anna to as well. Anna stormed out of the room right after Gregory, Elsa trudging along behind them.

"Now, where's the highest room in your castle?" The prince tried to appear charming as he gazed down at Elsa, but she was not in the mood to deal with it. She grumpily replied, "Two lefts and a right, then up the stairs, but why are you bringing us up there anyway?"

"I've got a really great story to tell you and this is just the perfect, creepy night to tell it!" Elsa perked up at the mention of storytelling and followed the other two toward the North tower, which overlooked the entirety of Arendelle and the surrounding lands.

It was freezing up in the tower, which wasn't as well adorned as the rest of the castle, just barren walls and old dusty furniture. The three kids settled on a blanket that Gregory had brought with him and stared out the wide windows at the storm raging on. Anna's fear had caught up with her and she pushed her face into Elsa's ribcage as though looking out at the storm might bring the imaginary giants to their doorstep.

"Alright, so what is this story that you're so excited to tell?" Elsa was already getting sleepy again up here in the dark.

"It's the scariest story I know and that's mostly because it's a true one! You see, once upon a time, there was a striking queen in a kingdom not too far from here, but she was evil. She was known to all the world as The Ice Witch…"

Anna gasped, her eyes growing wide as she listened to Gregory's story. Elsa was listening closely as well, but not because Gregory was some great storyteller, but because of the name of this queen…The Ice Witch. She was intrigued.

Gregory continued on, telling them all about this once beautiful and lovely princess who, upon her ascendance to the throne inflicted her secret, evil plans upon her entire kingdom. She was having an affair with a young, peasant man in town and was harboring a dark affliction, the ability to freeze people, not unlike Medusa's glare. One day, when she was still a princess, her father found out about this illicit love and had the boy killed. In a fit of rage, the princess, icy sorceress at heart, sought revenge on her own father, freezing him and his wife, her mother, to death and taking the throne herself. She then kept her powers a secret from everyone but her own family until the day that she killed a little girl in the forest. The townspeople heard of this and came together to vanquish the evil witch and end her reign.

By this point Elsa's eyes had grown wet. She had never really considered her own gift to be evil and she certainly never thought that there would be others out there like her.

"How could she even kill someone just with ice? I mean, she didn't…you know…stab them with an icicle or something?" Elsa tried to joke, but her nerves came through in her trembling voice.

"Don't be afraid my princess, I'm here to protect you." Gregory put his left arm around Elsa and explained further: "She struck them with ice in the heart. From there, the ice spread throughout their entire bodies until they were not unlike that ice sculpture at the party tonight."

"What was her name?" Anna asked.

"I do not know. My servant, Cassandra, would not tell me. She said that she is now only referred to by her true title…The Ice Witch. Supposedly when the first blizzards roll in, her spirit abducts children and turns them to ice so you little ones should WATCH OUT!"

The Prince reached over to make funny, scary faces at Anna who simply giggled and then yawned. She wasn't afraid of ice and snow. Her sister Elsa could do stuff with both and she was the nicest person in the whole, wide world.

Elsa had grown even more pale, no longer sleepy but aching to get away by herself for a long time. She could feel her fingers turning cold as ice and worried that her powers might show themselves unexpectedly. Elsa couldn't think of a worse time for that to happen.

"Well…I think it's time for us to get back to bed. It was…nice to meet you Prince Gregory, have a good trip back home."

She got up, but before she could grab Anna's hand to pull her back to bed, the Prince grabbed hers, gave it a soft, chaste kiss and then winked at her.

"I hope to see you again one day, Princess Elsa. You're even more lovely than the queen in the story."

Surely, Gregory intended it as a compliment, but it made Elsa feel like throwing up. She and Anna bid him goodbye and returned to bed.

That night, Elsa could not get to sleep, even as Anna snored beside her.

She couldn't get that story out of her head and, for the first time, she felt compelled to ask her parents about the gift.

**xx**

**Author's Note: Alright...thanks for reading guys! Review if possible and let me know if this is going alright or terribly or about your day...whatever tickles your fancy. Next chapter will bring us up to the Olaf/Anna/Elsa scene in the ballroom from the actual film...so yay! **

**Subtitles once again from Kate Bush's ****_Snowflake_****.**


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